She wasn't the first one to make me cry. As I've written before, I went through a terrible preceptor back in January. And the funny part is that this preceptor knew, and hated the earlier one. She defended me against the things the other one said in January. Regardless, I was sitting there feeling all of these different feelings and all of a sudden it starts to feel warmer and warmer in that office. Oh no, here we go again. I've been able to fight this reaction before but it had gone on to long. The dam I built all year was broken. And at this point band aids were on bullet wounds. The back of my neck starts sweating. My hair, that I had straightened in the morning to try to look more professional was curling and frizzing in the moisture. Tears are forming in the inner corners of my eyes. My cheeks are filling with blood. They might explode right here, but then my blood would be all over her office. Imagine the cleaning bill I would get after that one. My mind races and goes blank at the same time. I have to many thoughts, and no thoughts. "I'm making you nervous, aren't I?" she asks. "Little bit," I manage to choke out. That was a mistake. Admitting it only opened the flood gate.
A lot of people with anxiety get reactions when they are overwhelmed with stimulation. Too many outside things effecting their mechanism to process information at the same time. Well due to the lovely personality type that I have, which I talked about before (we are very big picture thinkers, very aware, and very intuitive) I get anxiety reactions when I am trying to process to many emotions. When I started this final rotation I was scared, excited, and nervous... plus any level of empathetic toward patients depending on the day; and it was hard. It was very difficult to understand all of these emotions happening to me at the same time. And I was just trying to breathe. After that reaction, my preceptor 'evaluated me'. She asked a million questions and made a lot of assumptions. That was the first one.
On my way home from my rotation that day I called my mom because all I wanted was someone that was going to tell me I was going to make it through the next 5 weeks alive. That was all I wanted to hear at that time. And that's what she gave to me. Along with the maternal advice to go check with the psych services on campus. That was the second time.
I went to psych services. It was in an all white building with no windows. I made an appointment with a graduate student that was finishing her clinical psych rotation. She asked. I answered through more tears. We decided together that life was stressful but since I was leaving so soon she couldn't help me. She felt so bad for me when I was leaving that she printed out a bunch of written material on relaxation techniques for me to take home and begged me to try them. That was the third.
When I got home I went to see my shiney, new, primary care doctor and she just talked to me a bunch about medications I could take and referred me to a few people that I could talk to. Number four.
I called the lady I was referred to. She brought me in for an evaluation. I talked. She listened. Fifth time's a charm, right?
And now I have anxiety. I mean duh, have you ever talked to me? But now I'm official, I'm getting my certificate framed. Putting a name on it makes it magically disappear, right? Living with it is tough, but not defiant. They didn't even give me drugs for it. Nothing has changed, no weight has been lifted, I just now have the vocabulary to describe my thought process. There is a name for the way I think. It's not like I haven't suspected it my whole life. I actually kind of feel bad for people who don't have a title for this chapter in their life book. We'll call them The Anxiety Chronicles. Now I just know that sometimes I just have to shake myself and tell me to shut up. I'm getting better at it everyday. And I only think it took 5 evaluations to come up with this because my case is so special.. but that might just be the anxiety talking.
